It is desired to enable automatic detection of gaze direction. Several advantageous applications would benefit including gaming applications and power saving and launching features of computer devices, among others. Certain such gaming applications can take advantage of a flag as to whether a user is looking at a single screen or one or multiple screens, and/or whether the user is looking at one screen as compared to another, e.g., above or below a camera location. In case of Notebook/Display applications, this can provide utility for power save or launching applications based on where the user is looking.
It is recognized by the inventor in the present application that the capability of detecting an eye blink has been described at least at U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,551,754, 7,904,983, and 7,792,335 and United States published applications nos. US2008/0190803, US2011/0007174, US2009/0238419, US2009/0080713, US2009/0003708, US2009/0003661, US2009/0003652, US2009/0002514, US2008/0316327, US2008/0292193, US2008/0220750, and US2008/0219517, which belong to the same assignee as the present application and are hereby incorporated by reference. Moreover, even horizontal gaze detection has been described at least at US2009/0189998 which also belongs to the same assignee as the present application and is incorporated by reference. This is a further enhancement on top to allow for specific applications, typically other. An advantageous enhancement is recognized by the inventor in the present application that has application to digital still cameras (DSCs) and mobile camera-phones and also to laptops, desktops, set-top boxes, gaming applications and other applications benefiting from knowledge of eye gaze direction by a user of a camera-enabled appliance.